Tarighat Monfared: Five Million Iranians Lack Health Insurance

Iranian Health Minister Mohammad Hassan Tarighat Monfared says three to five million people in Iran lack health insurance. With the population of 80 million, only 5% of Iranians do not have health insurance. At this time, Ministry of Welfare and Social Security is responsible for insuring Iranians who don’t receive supports from their employers.

“Statistics show that three to five million people don’t have health insurance. Currently, more than 80 million insurance cards have been issued in the country. Some people are using multiple health insurance plans. By launching a comprehensive system, which gathers records from various databases, we will be able to tackle this problem” Mohammad Hassan Tarighat Monfared told reporters on Thursday.

Over the past few months, state-owned insurance companies didn’t pay compensations for expensive medicines because of exchange volatilities in Iranian markets. “We are planning to allocate certain budget to governmental insurance companies in order to compensate people using these services.” Iranian Health Minister added.

Iran Insurance Company, followed by the Asia Insurance Company, the Alborz Insurance Company and the Dana Insurance Company are the four leading state-owned insurance companies in Iran.

Tarighat Monfared also went on to say that Health Ministry in partnership with local medicine producers and universities is trying to fabricate rare drugs inside the country. “At the time being, we are unable to import medicines from the European and American countries due to international embargoes. According to the latest agreements, local medicine producers will start making rare drugs in Iran. Health Ministry will support this plan financially and technically.”

Iran is importing only 5% of its needed medicines from the other countries.